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Patricia Janiot is on the move.

Christine Champagne

Juan Manuel Garcia/Univision

An influential figure in Spanish-language news for nearly three decades, Patricia Janiot has interviewed most of Latin America's heads of state — including Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and Augusto Pinochet. But this year is all about beginnings for the Emmy-winning journalist and anchor.

"New job, new city, new life, new home," Janiot says. After two decades as an anchor at CNN en Español, she has left the network and her home base of Atlanta to take on new responsibilities at Univision News in Miami.

Announced late last year, Janiot's decision to depart CNN en Español wasn't an easy one, in light of her long and storied history at CNN. In 1992, she came to the network from Univision's KMEX-DT affiliate in Los Angeles to coanchor Noticiero Telemundo CNN. When CNN en Español launched in 1997 to bring Spanish-language news to millions in Latin America and the U.S., she joined the fledgling network.

A combination of professional and personal reasons ultimately led Janiot back to Univision. "After 26 years, you start thinking that you need a new challenge," she says. When their kids went off to college, she and her husband became empty–nesters. "I had nothing to be attached to in Atlanta," she explains. "It's time for a new life."

Janiot is also launching a news program across Univision News' digital platforms that will focus on Latin America. "That's something that really attracted me, because that is the future," she says. "Fewer and fewer people are getting news through TV, especially millennials, so we need to get prepared for that."

It's a challenging time for Janiot and her peers, given that the U.S. president readily dismisses anything he doesn't like as "fake news." This native of Colombia is undeterred.

"Obviously, after covering Latin America for so many years, we are used to that — to the confrontation, the criticism, the accusations," she says. If anything, Janiot says, attacks from the president are inspiring every major news organization to do even better reporting. "Everybody's going next level," she says.